Hi, my name is Karen, and it’s lovely to meet you!

I live in Louisiana, a short drive away from New Orleans. I’m married to a wonderful fellow geek who loves classic Doctor Who, board games, video gaming, 3D printing, woodworking, and most everything tech-related.

We have a Pembroke Welsh Corgi, Daisy, and a Chihuahua, Mia. We got Daisy from a local breeder in 2019, and Mia was my mother-in-law’s pup that we took in after she passed in 2020. They’re both extremely spoiled, LOVE snuggles and attention from people, and taking up all the room on the bed.  We also had another Corgi, Gizmo, who crossed the rainbow bridge back in December of 2022.

I’m firmly an ambivert – I love meeting people, love being around others, but I need my personal time or quiet moments just as much. 

I love going to sci-fi/comic/anime conventions and ren faires.  I met my husband and some of my oldest friends through LARPing (live action roleplaying), and still hold a special place in my heart for good old-fashioned tabletop RPGs.

I’m a huge photography buff, both digital and film. I’ll be posting some of my favorite pictures here occasionally.

I love vintage-inspired fashion, especially dresses that look like they’re from the 40s and 50s, but my heart will always hold a special place for early 90s grunge fashion (dresses + combat boots 4 LYFE).

I collect assorted shades of red lipstick.

What do you do, and how did you get into blogging?

For my day job, I work in IT for a Large Company’s legal department, providing support to multiple offices.  Before my current position at Large Company, I was a web administrator for a small marketing firm, and before that, I was a bra fitter. 

I started back in school in January of 2024 to get my degree in Cybersecurity and Information Assurance and am very excited to learn more about it and possibly expand my knowledge and experience into helping people and companies keep their information secure.

I started blogging in 2002 because I was interested in learning more about web design and how to create websites.  I’ve had many self-hosted websites over the years (and ooooh some of them were REAL cringy).  Like most others, I moved to the standard social media accounts such as LiveJournal, Facebook, Twitter, etc. over the years, but I really missed the days of the self-hosted site, linking to other blogs, “meeting” other websites online.  In late 2023, frustrated with the algorithms, the constant advertisements, the FOMO, the doomscrolling and anxiety, I read an article on the IndieWeb movement. 

I condensed all of my websites into this one, chronosaur.us, in January of 2024 and I’m not looking back. On this site, you’ll get all of me.  I’m not putting myself and my likes into silos anymore.  You’ll see everything from my daily musings, to squeeing about nerdgirl and K-Pop stuff, to photography posts, to even deeper discussions about mental health, depression, and anxiety.

Where did the name “chronosaur.us” come from?

Chronosaurus is a song by Stray Kids, originally off their album Cle 1: MIROH, and then re-recorded for their SKZ2020 compilation.  Give it a listen, it’s my absolute favorite song by them.

So…K-Pop music. What’s the deal?

I’ve always been a music person. I listen to just about anything. Alternative, industrial, goth, metal, classic rock, pop, rap, hip-hop, R&B – I’ll pretty much give anything a listen and I love learning about new bands and genres.

Just like a lot of people over the past few years, I kind of started poking about K-Pop, thanks to the rising popularity of BTS in the US. Yep, I’m one of those people who heard Dynamite and Butter and was like “hmmm okay then.” One of my friends, M, is a huge BTS fan, and when the group announced that they were going to livestream their Las Vegas Permission To Dance concert, I said “Sure, I’ll host a watch party, they sound fun in concert!” Three hours after watching the show with a group of friends, I was HOOKED.

I started asking and digging for recommendations on other groups, which led me to Stray Kids, whose sound I fell in love with. I rapidly became a massive ATEEZ fan after that, and I’ve added more groups to my faves over time. 

There’s so much I am still finding and hearing about, and I’ve made some lifelong friendships in the process.  It’s a lot of fun!  I hosted a K-Pop blog in 2023, Burn Like a Flame, and even though it’s gone now, I pulled all my old posts here and plan to talk about some of my favorite songs, groups, and musings on the state of fandom.

Who’s your faves?

• ATEEZ
  • Ult: Hongjoong
  • Biases: OT8, I truly do love them all. But if I have to pick, Seonghwa.
• Stray Kids
  • Ult: Bang Chan
  • Biases: OT8, honestly. But if I have to pick somebody, I’d have to say Jeongin.
• SHINee
  • Biases: Key, Taemin
• Seventeen
  • Biases: Vernon, Mingyu, S.Coups
• ONEUS
  • Biases: Leedo, Hwanwoong
• The Rose
  • Bias: Dojoon

(Last updated 5/27/2024)